"Mel Odom - Apocalypse Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Odom Mel)

40 Klicks South ofSanliurfa,Turkey

Local Time 0601 Hours



Death stalked the invisible line that separatedSyria andTurkey .

Goose peered through his binoculars and adjusted the magnifica-tion as he scanned the border. He
knew the balance that kept three ar-mies from each other's throats was so tenuous that any change might
tip it the wrong way. Even a shift in the slow, dry wind might trigger renewed hostilities. The hatred
between the Turks and the Syrian--sponsored Kurdish terrorists had existed for too many generations to
count. And Goose knew that the Turks' American allies would be in the thick of the fighting, no matter
who started it.

The early morning light hurt Goose's eyes, and the rocks and sand around him absorbed the sun's rays
and steadily rose to baking tem-perature. By midafternoon, he knew from hard experience, the arid land
would be almost unbearable.
 For the last seventy-two hours, he and C Company had been on constant alert in full battle dress,
camped in the harsh, barren plateaus overlooking the border. He'd been awake for so long that sleep
was a distant memory. The exhausted man inside him had no place here. The professional warrior had to
stay sharp.

Despite the circumstances, he'd taken the time to stay clean--shaven, although he hadn't foisted the same
expectation on his men. Leadership was often as much about image as about substance. A shade less
than six feet tall, with wheat-colored blond hair that al-most matched the desert around him and a body
disciplined by nearly two decades of military training, Goose looked like a soldier. He kept his hair
cropped high and tight, but sand still found a way to burrow into his scalp, where it itched furiously. Just
one more irritant he had to ignore. The dry heat pulled at the half-moon shrapnel scar that ran from his
right eyebrow to his cheekbone. The scar was less than six months old and still felt tight.

During the last few months, his border patrol assignment had turned nasty. The body count was getting
serious for all sides. Of late, a few American casualties had been added into the mix, kicking up
in-ternational scrutiny and drawing the attention of news media from all over the globe. There were other
hot spots in the world, of course, and news service people were hunkered down like vultures around the
var-ious front lines, waiting to see where the bloodiest violence would erupt first.

Goose prayed some other place would win that lottery. He was sit-ting atop a powder keg that could
leave dead soldiers piled high on both sides of the border-some of whom he might be responsible for.

Many months ago, the United Nations had sought the help of theUnited States to police a flare-up in
terrorist activity alongTurkey 's borders.PresidentFitzhugh responded by sending in the troops. He
explained to the American people that it was more than local terror-ism that threatened the peace in that
part of the world. Before long the Syrian army was facing off with the Turks at the border. Because
ofTurkey 's role as a key Western ally in the turbulentMiddle East , Fitz-hugh had made sure help had
been quick in coming. The 75th Army Ranger Regiment moved into the area on a peacekeeping mission.
Rifle companies of the Third Battalion fromFort Benning,Georgia , an outfit with an illustrious combat
history, had taken on their portion of the mission.

Goose hoped the American forces could keep the border nailed down until peace talks betweenTurkey